I'm no expert but as far as I can see, UHDR doesn't outlaw the death penalty. In fact, it doesn't say anything about the death penalty. It does say "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person" but that by itself doesn't mean everyone has the absolute right to life, otherwise soldiers would be commiting murder every time they killed another soldier or policemen would be commiting murder when they kill an armed criminal, or women/doctors are murderers when thay have abortions. See: http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=427
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[QUOTE] [b]ParisNair wrote:[/b]
I personally donot understand what's wrong with capital punshment for someone who's a mass murderer. hat someone is not a serial killer. He's not a psycho. He's not a prisoner of war. But a well trained, well armed person who enters a crowded railway station at peak hour and starts shooting iniscriminately at people who are in a rush to get home from their place of work.[/QUOTE]
The only problem is - what if they're wrong?
The debate needs to move beyond people or countries being "civilized" vs "uncivilized." There are a lot of factors at play here.
People are often wrongfully convicted and sit in jail for decades. No amount of money can give them their lives back. Sometimes they are forced to plead guilty as a plea bargain, and in more extreme cases they do so because they are tortured or are under fear of torture. And now and again these innocent people are executed.
It costs a lot of money to incarcerate someone, which is a huge benefit of capital punishment. A lot of people are against the idea of paying to keep mentally sane mass murderers alive. But at the end of the day - there's almost always that 0.00001% chance that they may have the wrong guy.
The problem with capital punishment is that it has been abused by the power-hungry vigilante justice types. Some parts of the US really aren't different from Iran. But it does seem like India has been incredibly selective in this case, as the country does not exercise this option very often.
I personally donot understand what's wrong with capital punshment for someone who's a mass murderer. hat someone is not a serial killer. He's not a psycho. He's not a prisoner of war. But a well trained, well armed person who enters a crowded railway station at peak hour and starts shooting iniscriminately at people who are in a rush to get home from their place of work.[/QUOTE]
The only problem is - what if they're wrong?
The debate needs to move beyond people or countries being "civilized" vs "uncivilized." There are a lot of factors at play here.
People are often wrongfully convicted and sit in jail for decades. No amount of money can give them their lives back. Sometimes they are forced to plead guilty as a plea bargain, and in more extreme cases they do so because they are tortured or are under fear of torture. And now and again these innocent people are executed.
It costs a lot of money to incarcerate someone, which is a huge benefit of capital punishment. A lot of people are against the idea of paying to keep mentally sane mass murderers alive. But at the end of the day - there's almost always that 0.00001% chance that they may have the wrong guy.
The problem with capital punishment is that it has been abused by the power-hungry vigilante justice types. Some parts of the US really aren't different from Iran. But it does seem like India has been incredibly selective in this case, as the country does not exercise this option very often.
[QUOTE] [b]Holly2003 wrote:[/b]
I'm no expert but as far as I can see, UHDR doesn't outlaw the death penalty. In fact, it doesn't say anything about the death penalty. It does say "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person" but that by itself doesn't mean everyone has the absolute right to life, otherwise soldiers would be commiting murder every time they killed another soldier or policemen would be commiting murder when they kill an armed criminal, or women/doctors are murderers when thay have abortions. See: http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=427 [/QUOTE]
International jurisprudence considers this a ban on the death penalty - it was one of the main arguments in the abolition of the death penalty in European countries after 1948, and also in the writing of the treaties that formed the European Union, which prohibits its members from allowing the death penalty outside of military law during wartime.
I'm no expert but as far as I can see, UHDR doesn't outlaw the death penalty. In fact, it doesn't say anything about the death penalty. It does say "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person" but that by itself doesn't mean everyone has the absolute right to life, otherwise soldiers would be commiting murder every time they killed another soldier or policemen would be commiting murder when they kill an armed criminal, or women/doctors are murderers when thay have abortions. See: http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=427 [/QUOTE]
International jurisprudence considers this a ban on the death penalty - it was one of the main arguments in the abolition of the death penalty in European countries after 1948, and also in the writing of the treaties that formed the European Union, which prohibits its members from allowing the death penalty outside of military law during wartime.
Meh, fuck the both of them. Pakistan sits there going "No honestly, really, I swear - I've never even MET Afghanistan!". And India just sits there trying to be China Jr. Meanwhile, civilians in both countries have to deal with the consequences. It's enough to make me want to puke.
[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]
International jurisprudence considers this a ban on the death penalty - it was one of the main arguments in the abolition of the death penalty in European countries after 1948, and also in the writing of the treaties that formed the European Union, which prohibits its members from allowing the death penalty outside of military law during wartime.
[/QUOTE]
International jurisprudence DOES NOT universally regard the death penalty as illegal regardless of the political and human rights views of the EU, or it's club rules. The legally enshrined (i.e. in the form of a UN treaty binding to it's signatories) verbiage on the death penalty only seeks to set strict standards for it's application. Non-binding UN resolutions (i.e. reccomendations only) have passed in recent years that call for a progressive reduction in its use with the short term goal of a moratorium and an eye to an outright ban beyond that. As recently as the mid 90's one such resolution failed to pass, illustrating that less than 20 years ago the body couldn't even agree that it was appropriate to recommend a moratorium on a voluntary basis.
The language on just about any authoritave website makes it completely clear that the abolition of the death penalty is a goal of international law for the future.
Amnesty International
http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/international-law
"These resolutions are not legally binding on governments, but represent important milestones for the abolitionist movement and constitute a continued progress towards the total exclusion of capital punishment from International Law."
IBA Human Rights Institute
http://www.ibanet.org/Human_Rights_Institute/About_the_HRI/HRI_Activities/death_penalty_resolution.aspx
"While the death penalty is not prohibited under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) or any other virtually universal treaty, a number of instruments in favour of abolition have entered into force in recent years."
And contrary to your claims that the issue was long ago closed to UN debate, here's a five year old UN debate:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/gashc3897.doc.htm
So nobody is in "legal limbo" by simple virtue of the fact that they've applied capital punishment. You quite simply made that up. And the current Prime Minister of Turkey is advocating a reinstatement of capital punishment, likely as a politically motivated appeal to a nationalistic, populist sentiment mind, and something that may never happen even at a debate stage, but it's not correct to imply as you did that the issue is long off the radar of every state that currently outlaws capital punishment.
Your weary and reluctant arguments basically reduce to a bunch of ad populum and things that aren't true. And even if they were, "it's immoral because it's against the law" is an equally fallacious "proof". Gay marriage for example remains illegal in many places. Does that then cement its immorality? I agree that the death penalty is both immoral and suitable for banning under international law, and as a result could produce a coherent list of objections that actually could be called arguments. It's irreversible in the case of error, people are often executed at dates and times so remote from the crimes and their circumstances that you are not effectively killing the same person that was convicted, it is vulnerable to uneven application and popular and political abuses, it's contradictory that the state meets murder with murder etc. etc.
"Gay marriage for example remains illegal in many places. Does that then cement its immorality?"
No.
But actual cement would do the trick. I propose we put people who want to get married (straight, gay, all groups basically, etc.) into massive buckets of it.
No.
But actual cement would do the trick. I propose we put people who want to get married (straight, gay, all groups basically, etc.) into massive buckets of it.
[QUOTE]
Technically, your country is acting illegally by maintaining the death penalty, regardless of your opinion on the subject.
[/QUOTE]
Practically, my country is acting legally because it is not breaking the laws of the land. "legal" or "illegal" are not terms you can apply at a global level. I don;t have to tell you what's legal in one country may be illegal in another. can you point me to exact statements in the UN Human rights declaration that state all member states should abolish the death penalty?
[QUOTE]
The second part of your statement is pretty outrageous, as there are countries that still maintain the death penalty that are debating abolishing it (like much of the United States), whereas there are no countries that do not have the death penalty that are debating re-instating it. In the civilized world, only marginal extremists are in favour of the death penalty, and to my knowledge no major political parties exist that seek to re-instate it.
[/QUOTE]
Another one of your hollow points which don't mean anything. I said it's being debated, and you're actually agreeing to it.
[QUOTE]
European Union, which prohibits its members from allowing the death penalty outside of military law during wartime.
[/QUOTE]
So its OK for an innocent man to kill another innocent man on the orders of someone else. But, if a man is a mass murderer (or worse crimes) you have no option but to spend a lot of money (and then some) on the trial and upkeep in prison for the rest of his life? That's ridiculuos and double standards.
But that's besides the point, cos we are not in Europe. We follow our laws here in India.
May I add that the death penalty is very rare in India (3 inlcuding the latest one, since 2005). Each time the case was deemed as "rarest of rare" by the court. I don't mean this to be taken as a point of appeasement, just a matter of fact.
And the death penaly is not something that we celebrate. Only this time, it came as a huge relief to the nation as it was a cause of agitation for almost the entire nation that a terrorist was being fed and given the tightest security on tax payers' money, after all he had done.
Technically, your country is acting illegally by maintaining the death penalty, regardless of your opinion on the subject.
[/QUOTE]
Practically, my country is acting legally because it is not breaking the laws of the land. "legal" or "illegal" are not terms you can apply at a global level. I don;t have to tell you what's legal in one country may be illegal in another. can you point me to exact statements in the UN Human rights declaration that state all member states should abolish the death penalty?
[QUOTE]
The second part of your statement is pretty outrageous, as there are countries that still maintain the death penalty that are debating abolishing it (like much of the United States), whereas there are no countries that do not have the death penalty that are debating re-instating it. In the civilized world, only marginal extremists are in favour of the death penalty, and to my knowledge no major political parties exist that seek to re-instate it.
[/QUOTE]
Another one of your hollow points which don't mean anything. I said it's being debated, and you're actually agreeing to it.
[QUOTE]
European Union, which prohibits its members from allowing the death penalty outside of military law during wartime.
[/QUOTE]
So its OK for an innocent man to kill another innocent man on the orders of someone else. But, if a man is a mass murderer (or worse crimes) you have no option but to spend a lot of money (and then some) on the trial and upkeep in prison for the rest of his life? That's ridiculuos and double standards.
But that's besides the point, cos we are not in Europe. We follow our laws here in India.
May I add that the death penalty is very rare in India (3 inlcuding the latest one, since 2005). Each time the case was deemed as "rarest of rare" by the court. I don't mean this to be taken as a point of appeasement, just a matter of fact.
And the death penaly is not something that we celebrate. Only this time, it came as a huge relief to the nation as it was a cause of agitation for almost the entire nation that a terrorist was being fed and given the tightest security on tax payers' money, after all he had done.
[QUOTE]
The Real Wizard wrote:
The only problem is - what if they're wrong?
The debate needs to move beyond people or countries being "civilized" vs "uncivilized." There are a lot of factors at play here.
People are often wrongfully convicted and sit in jail for decades. No amount of money can give them their lives back. Sometimes they are forced to plead guilty as a plea bargain, and in more extreme cases they do so because they are tortured or are under fear of torture. And now and again these innocent people are executed.
It costs a lot of money to incarcerate someone, which is a huge benefit of capital punishment. A lot of people are against the idea of paying to keep mentally sane mass murderers alive. But at the end of the day - there's almost always that 0.00001% chance that they may have the wrong guy.
The problem with capital punishment is that it has been abused by the power-hungry vigilante justice types. Some parts of the US really aren't different from Iran. But it does seem like India has been incredibly selective in this case, as the country does not exercise this option very often.
[/QUOTE]
If its the wrong guy, its unfair, period. Does not mattter if the punishment is death or incarceration. This is not a potent argument against death penalty, in my opnion.
In this particular case, the guy was caught red-handed. There is CC TV footage, and press photographs taken while the terrorist was in action. there were live witnesses - the railway announcer, policement, general public. I recall watching him and his colleagues on TV (telecast of the CC tv footage) leaving the railay station. fully armed and very military-like (like they do in the movies, with all the hand signals).
The Real Wizard wrote:
The only problem is - what if they're wrong?
The debate needs to move beyond people or countries being "civilized" vs "uncivilized." There are a lot of factors at play here.
People are often wrongfully convicted and sit in jail for decades. No amount of money can give them their lives back. Sometimes they are forced to plead guilty as a plea bargain, and in more extreme cases they do so because they are tortured or are under fear of torture. And now and again these innocent people are executed.
It costs a lot of money to incarcerate someone, which is a huge benefit of capital punishment. A lot of people are against the idea of paying to keep mentally sane mass murderers alive. But at the end of the day - there's almost always that 0.00001% chance that they may have the wrong guy.
The problem with capital punishment is that it has been abused by the power-hungry vigilante justice types. Some parts of the US really aren't different from Iran. But it does seem like India has been incredibly selective in this case, as the country does not exercise this option very often.
[/QUOTE]
If its the wrong guy, its unfair, period. Does not mattter if the punishment is death or incarceration. This is not a potent argument against death penalty, in my opnion.
In this particular case, the guy was caught red-handed. There is CC TV footage, and press photographs taken while the terrorist was in action. there were live witnesses - the railway announcer, policement, general public. I recall watching him and his colleagues on TV (telecast of the CC tv footage) leaving the railay station. fully armed and very military-like (like they do in the movies, with all the hand signals).
@Grateful Fan
Beat me to it.
Beat me to it.
Great! Now the entire forum knows they could have got the information in half the space and with twice the clarity. :)
[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]
"and ofcourse capital punishment IS open for debate, and that's why the whole world is debating it."
No, it is not, because it has been outlawed by binding UN legislation (UDoHR).[/QUOTE]
Worth noting as well that the UDHR was in the form of a declaration, not a treaty. So not only does it not address the death penalty, but it wasn't and never has been directly binding.
"and ofcourse capital punishment IS open for debate, and that's why the whole world is debating it."
No, it is not, because it has been outlawed by binding UN legislation (UDoHR).[/QUOTE]
Worth noting as well that the UDHR was in the form of a declaration, not a treaty. So not only does it not address the death penalty, but it wasn't and never has been directly binding.